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President Barack Obama signs a series of executive orders about the administration's new gun law proposals. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Sometimes a person’s principled stance shines like warm sunlight through the densest political fog. That’s what Evan M. Todd’s letter to President Barack Obama has become. Evan had a gun held to his head by one of the two Columbine killers. They asked him why he should be allowed to live. He’s now showing them why.

He says he learned one fundamental thing from his encounter with evil: freedom matters and nothing is more fundamental to freedom than the right to self-preservation.

Now he’s asking the president to man-up and look past his ideology to the facts. He is challenging the president to admit what really works to stop murderers—freedom.

As I interviewed Evan I was reminded of a Special Forces sergeant I interviewed for my book The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide, Rediscovering the Lost Art of Manhood. For a chapter on heroism I wanted to know what makes a person selflessly risk their life for their country. Sergeant Greg Stube—who had been so badly wounded in Afghanistan that he spent a year in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center—summed his reason up by saying, “I simply believe in the goodness of true, individual freedom.” Stube is also an outspoken supporter of the freedom protected by the Second Amendment. Stube told me after he spoke about freedom at one of the National Rifle Association’s conventions that saving freedom “sometimes takes spilling blood on battlefields, but more often takes a willingness to honestly speak out for freedom at home.”

That’s what Evan is doing by telling his story and publically asking the president to look at the facts.

After convincing the Columbine killers not to murder him, Evan—though slightly wounded from a shotgun blast—helped other students escape from the school. One of the students he helped said, “Evan did everything in his power to keep the students around him calmed and reassured.” As a result of Evan’s conduct, the Boy Scouts of America awarded him its Honor Medal. The Colorado State Legislature also honored him with a commendation.

In the years since the murders at Columbine High School in 1999, Evan has spoken at hundreds of public and private high schools, colleges, churches, youth groups and more. He has spoken out on national news networks and radio shows. But it was his letter to President Barack Obama that surprised so many.

Evan says he didn’t set out to write such a letter. A friend of his who works for The Blaze asked him what he’d say to the president. Evan wrote his thoughts out in an email. It was so compelling they printed the letter.

Even wrote: “I personally witnessed two fellow students murder twelve of my classmates and one teacher. The assault weapons ban [which was then in effect] did not deter these two murderers, nor did the other thirty-something laws that they broke.” Evan also asks, “Why would you prefer criminals to have the ability to out-gun law-abiding citizens?” He then asks the president: “Whose side are you on?”

Evans goes point by point as he asks the president to man-up to the truth about what really has been proven to stop murderers. He asks, “[I]s a universal background check system possible without universal gun registration? If so, please define it for us. Universal registration can easily be used for universal confiscation. I am not at all implying that you, sir, would try such a measure, but we do need to think about our actions through the lens of time.”

On the president’s want for a new ban on “assault weapons,” Evan says, the previous ban “had little to no effect when it was in place from 1994 until 2004.” Evan later points out that the Virginia Tech massacre of unarmed people occurred in a “gun-free zone.” He says, “Seung-Hui Cho used two of the smallest-caliber handguns manufactured and a handful of 10-round magazines. There are no substantial facts that prove that limited magazines would make any difference at all.”

He says, “I’ve heard you ask, ‘Why does someone need 30 bullets to kill a deer?’ Evan then responds, "when did the government get into the business of regulating ‘needs?’”

Evan’s letter to Obama brings his experience and conclusions together when he says, “Criminals who cannot buy guns legally just resort to the black market…. Mr. President, in theory, your initiatives and proposals sound warm and fuzzy, but in reality they are far from what we need. Your initiatives seem to punish law-abiding American citizens and enable the murderers, thugs and other lowlifes who wish to do harm to others. Let me be clear: These ideas are the worst possible initiatives if you seriously care about saving lives and also upholding your oath of office.”

Evan then offers a “few ideas that will save more that one individual.”

He says, “First, forget all of your current initiatives and executive orders. They will do nothing more than impede law-abiding citizens and breach the intent of the Constitution. Each initiative steals freedom, grants more power to an already-overreaching government and empowers and enables criminals to run amok. Second, press Congress to repeal the ‘Gun Free Zone Act.’ Don’t allow America’s teachers and students to be endangered one day more. These parents and teachers have the natural right to defend themselves and not be looked at as criminals. There is no reason teachers must disarm themselves to perform their jobs. There is also no reason a parent or volunteer should be disarmed when they cross the school line.

“This is your chance to correct history and restore liberty. This simple act of restoring freedom will deter would-be murderers and for those who try, they will be met with resistance. Mr. President, do the right thing, restore freedom, and save lives. Show the American people that you stand with them and not with thugs and criminals.”

When being interviewed for this article, Evan said that a lot of “Columbine survivors” have contacted him since his letter to the president went viral. He says they all thank him for bravely speaking out. He says he wishes someone would do a poll on the students who were there that day, because it seems to him most disagree with the president’s proposals.

Evan says many former Columbine students have told him they wish a good guy had had a gun that day inside the school. He says, “I don’t blame the armed guard for not coming into the school or even the police for not immediately coming into the school. Columbine wasn’t like anything they’d prepared for. Their training taught them to control and negotiate. They weren’t prepared for what was happening, but they’ve made changes since. Now they know better.”

What remains to be seen is whether politicians, such as President Obama, can open their eyes wide enough to see passed their anti-Second Amendment beliefs and to advocate for solutions that will really work—ideas that stop criminals, not things designed to further restrict the rights of law-abiding Americans. What remains to be seen is if the president and some others can be as heroic as Evan; after all, President Obama has clearly been told by his own administration that freedom works.

To see what I mean check out this white paper the NRA somehow obtained and published. It was written by Greg Ridgeway, deputy director of the National Institute of Justice (the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice). The white paper acknowledges that an “assault weapons” ban won’t lower the murder rate and it says gun confiscations are necessary to achieve the administration’s goals. It also says a magazine-size restriction won’t work unless the government bans and confiscates them. The white paper acknowledges that Australia’s ban on semi-automatic firearms didn’t lower its murder rate. In sum, though its conclusions run counter to freedom, it clearly shows that Evan is right and that President Obama should know the truth about what can make our schools and streets safer—if he’d only man-up and admit freedom works we’d all be a lot better off.